This is the third volume in Chandos’ survey of orchestral works by Alfredo Casella, which forms part of the ongoing Italian Music series with the BBC Philharmonic and Gianandrea Noseda. The two previous volumes have been very well received by reviewers and the buying public alike, David A. McConnell of MusicWeb International commenting: ‘I am once again dumbstruck by how engaging and wonderful this music is. The orchestra plays its collective heart out, and the Chandos recording is stunning in its realism and impact.’………..

The temptation to call Casella's music »charming« may be great, but perhaps such a label will not do anything to take away from it. But with such a diminutive of perception one will in no way do justice to the high standards of his music and their virtuoso realization in a manner which has been recognized as having been unique along the paths leading to New Music.

Italy's Alfredo Casella has been talked up as the great unknown composer of the first half of the 20th century. He was influenced by Debussy, Mahler, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky in turn, yet he mixed and matched elements of their styles with a distinctive formal imagination. Casella was largely responsible for the reintroduction of Vivaldi to the musical world, and some of the neo-classic music he composed later in his career had direct Baroque references. This album lacks that aspect of his work, but these three pieces, each made up of short chunks of music, probably offers an easier introduction to Casella than do the weightier symphonies. The Concerto for Orchestra, loosely neo-classical, appeared in 1938 and thus lay between Hindemith's and Bartók's works with the same title.

Italy's Alfredo Casella has been talked up as the great unknown composer of the first half of the 20th century. He was influenced by Debussy, Mahler, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky in turn, yet he mixed and matched elements of their styles with a distinctive formal imagination. Casella was largely responsible for the reintroduction of Vivaldi to the musical world, and some of the neo-classic music he composed later in his career had direct Baroque references. This album lacks that aspect of his work, but these three pieces, each made up of short chunks of music, probably offers an easier introduction to Casella than do the weightier symphonies. The Concerto for Orchestra, loosely neo-classical, appeared in 1938 and thus lay between Hindemith's and Bartók's works with the same title.

The temptation to call Casella's music »charming« may be great, but perhaps such a label will not do anything to take away from it. But with such a diminutive of perception one will in no way do justice to the high standards of his music and their virtuoso realization in a manner which has been recognized as having been unique along the paths leading to New Music.

Although his works have repeatedly aroused controversy, Alfredo Casella (1883-1947) was one of the most influential and innovative figures in Italian music throughout the period from the First World War to the Second. The five compositions here recorded date from various different stages in his highly active career.

Gundula Janowitz had a very beautiful voice that critics like to describe as "creamy," whatever that means. Strauss had a life-long love affair with the soprano voice. He even married one–not just the voice, the whole woman, of course. His Four Last Songs constitute his dying tribute, and they are probably the most hedonistically gorgeous vocal works in existence.

Performed by various soloists with the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ryusuke Numajiri. Recorded both in analog and digital versions in the Japanese double-CD release. "Twill by Twilight" is a harmonically and timbrally lush work, which often evokes the tone painting breadth of Debussy and the crystalline delicacy of Webern, an outpouring of "pastel coloring…reminders of the transient nature of twilight, before the coming night and after the sunset" (Takemitsu). It is dedicated to "the memory of my dear friend Morton Feldman." Takemitsu described the work's sub-structure as developed "through strictly measured musical units, through what might be called musical principles before a melody is constituted or before a rhythm is formed." This is a very apt metaphor applicable to Morton Feldman's own compositional style. The small and broad cyclicism of the rhythm patterns in Takemitsu's work is however much more hidden – a kind of phased, elastic, non-clockwork repetition with imaginative variations.